I probably won’t get a lot of people who agree with me, but here’s my opinion why there’s income inequality in the U.S. today:
Go into a classroom and take a survey. Ask among the kids who has a burning desire to get a high income and is making definite plans to achieve that high income.
In a class of 30 you might get 1 or 2 who answer Yes.
Guess who’s going to be rich later in life?
Says the guy with Patrick Bateman as his avatar lol.
Says the guy who really IS the douche in his avatar haha
[quote]Sikkario wrote:
Says the guy with Patrick Bateman as his avatar lol.[/quote]
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
All I’ll say is this;
It doesn’t matter how great of a player you are, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent playing the game, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your teacher was: If you get shit cards, you won’t win.[/quote]
Some people make it sound as though there are huge numbers of people out there who are intelligent and highly ambitious yet somehow fail at life beacuse of bad luck.
I have yet to come across any of these people.
People born in western countries who are willing to work extremely hard pretty much have it made.
I hear far too much complaining from people who seemingly have no comprehension of just how great their opportunities are relative to those of the majority of the worlds population.
From Maggie’s Farm:
Getting Poverty Wrong:
As I have discussed frequently here, people in America who fall into the poverty income stats (which significantly do not include govt and charity help - or take assets into account like our Maine blueberry famer with a 200-acre farm) because:
Furthermore, as long as poverty income stats are based on the lowest X%, it will never go away - even if, as it appears now, American poor have large-screen TVs, air-conditioned homes, and cars - and tend to be overweight.
Somebody - not a sociologist - should go out there and interview some poor people and get their real stories. It would be revealing. I know plenty of their stories and know what poverty is about because I work one day a week, pro bono, at a charity medical clinic in Boston - but I cannot tell those stories here.
The subject comes up because Steve Malanga has written the definitive report at City Journal: Getting Poverty Wrong, and it turns out that family structure accounts for the main problem.
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/7981-Getting-Poverty-Wrong.html
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
All I’ll say is this;
It doesn’t matter how great of a player you are, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent playing the game, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your teacher was: If you get shit cards, you won’t win.[/quote]
Define " won’t win".
You left out the key to success, though - desire.
Life is not a poker game. It is not a a game of chance.
I was happy making shit money working on ranches, and taking care of sick cattle in the feedyards. Then I got married, had a kid, and noticed that 1000 a month was not going to go nearly far enough.
Then I went back to school, got an MBA, and I make a lot more than 1K per month.
Whether by necessity or by planning, how bad you want to change your situation is not about the damn cards. It’s about guts.
Excusing away failure to try is just stupid.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
All I’ll say is this;
It doesn’t matter how great of a player you are, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent playing the game, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your teacher was: If you get shit cards, you won’t win.[/quote]
There are things you can control and others you cannot. It’s the choices you make with the things you can control that make the difference. Whining will get you no where, that is the only certainty.
There will always be rich and poor that is always be a certainty as well. As long as you have opportunity you can be successful. Here in the U.S. we have opportunity out the yin yang, most people who sponge of the government for a living are just plain fucking lazy. Even the illegals manage to eek out a living with out constant whining and bitching. They work.
Everybody in the west has two options, work or whine. I prefer work myself.
Trying to pin down the exact causes for income inequality is pointless. There are too many parameters. Education is important but it is hardly the cause for income inequality.
Even with a good education one who is not willing to work hard is not going to have an easy time climbing the wealth ladder. Some of the most wealthy people in the US were not formally educated – they worked hard and figured out how best to serve a particular customer base.
If people sit around expecting to be helped by government because their parents were poor or disenfranchised there is a good chance they will not rise out of poverty. I believe poverty to be directly proportional to the degree of dependence one has on government.
All this said, the most noticeable traits of top income earners in any field are:
This thread is hitting home for me somewhat. Lately I’ve given some thought to going back to school and becoming a lawyer. You wouldn’t believe how many people, including family members, that tell me it’s impossible and that the cards are stacked against me. I tell them that anything’s possible and I truly believe that, but damn, the negativity that you get hit with is astounding. I’ve been told that I’m “crazy”, and that I should be happy with what I’ve got. I am happy with what I’ve got, I just want more.
The problem, I believe, is the entitlement philosophy that has entrenched itself in the minds of too many Americans. Everybody thinks that they are “owed” something or that worthwhile endeavors should not involve too much sacrifice. You are entitled to nothing in this world save the opportunity to work your ass off and build a better life.
If someone wants to be in the Middle Class, they have to adopt middle class values. As numerous posters point out, it is really that simple.
[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
All I’ll say is this;
It doesn’t matter how great of a player you are, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent playing the game, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your teacher was: If you get shit cards, you won’t win.
Some people make it sound as though there are huge numbers of people out there who are intelligent and highly ambitious yet somehow fail at life beacuse of bad luck.
I have yet to come across any of these people.
People born in western countries who are willing to work extremely hard pretty much have it made.
I hear far too much complaining from people who seemingly have no comprehension of just how great their opportunities are relative to those of the majority of the worlds population.
[/quote]
I’ve met plenty, mostly doctors.
I’ve also met a lot of rich, rich morons who inherited shit loads of cash.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
All I’ll say is this;
It doesn’t matter how great of a player you are, it doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve spent playing the game, and it doesn’t matter how amazing your teacher was: If you get shit cards, you won’t win.
Define " won’t win".
You left out the key to success, though - desire.
Life is not a poker game. It is not a a game of chance.
I was happy making shit money working on ranches, and taking care of sick cattle in the feedyards. Then I got married, had a kid, and noticed that 1000 a month was not going to go nearly far enough.
Then I went back to school, got an MBA, and I make a lot more than 1K per month.
Whether by necessity or by planning, how bad you want to change your situation is not about the damn cards. It’s about guts.
Excusing away failure to try is just stupid.
[/quote]
Many people don’t have the luxury of being ABLE to go back to school. Many need to work two or three minimum wage jobs just so they can live paycheck to pay check. I live next to a project community, so I know a lot of these people. I also know a few who ARE trying to go back to school, but they don’t have the car, gas money, or time to get to the local community college. So instead, they put all their hope into their children; they save for college ect ect… and their kids are jackasses who will fuck up their youth due to a degenerative culture, and grow up to find themselves in THE EXACT SAME SITUATION.
They CAN bring themselves up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to work your way out of poverty, or even into wealth (though I think becoming wealthy has a lot more to do with opportunity than not being poor).
However, I’m ridiculing the notion that the amount of work one must put in is equal in any way.
Two identical twins with the same job and family life in two similar neighborhoods wish to become wealthy. They both work equally as hard. It is very likely one will become wealthy while the other will not, because he got an opportunity that the other did not.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Many people don’t have the luxury of being ABLE to go back to school. Many need to work two or three minimum wage jobs just so they can live paycheck to pay check. I live next to a project community, so I know a lot of these people. I also know a few who ARE trying to go back to school, but they don’t have the car, gas money, or time to get to the local community college. So instead, they put all their hope into their children; they save for college ect ect… and their kids are jackasses who will fuck up their youth due to a degenerative culture, and grow up to find themselves in THE EXACT SAME SITUATION.[/quote]
This is how it’s historically worked for immigrant cultures - and it has taken about 3 generations for them to catch up to the median U.S. family. Parents have a lot of influence on their kids - particularly when there are two parents in the house - and if they’re modeling good behavior and values, most times the kids will come around (or at least that’s how it has worked in the past).
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
They CAN bring themselves up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to work your way out of poverty, or even into wealth (though I think becoming wealthy has a lot more to do with opportunity than not being poor).
However, I’m ridiculing the notion that the amount of work one must put in is equal in any way.
Two identical twins with the same job and family life in two similar neighborhoods wish to become wealthy. They both work equally as hard. It is very likely one will become wealthy while the other will not, because he got an opportunity that the other did not.
[/quote]
There is a lot of the luck aspect to getting rich - but not to becoming middle class…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
There is a lot of the luck aspect to getting rich - but not to becoming middle class…[/quote]
There is no such thing as luck. There are only probabilities which determine circumstance. Many circumstances are beyond ones ability to directly influence but just as many, if not more, are not.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
There is a lot of the luck aspect to getting rich - but not to becoming middle class…
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
There is no such thing as luck. There are only probabilities which determine circumstance. Many circumstances are beyond ones ability to directly influence but just as many, if not more, are not. [/quote]
Tomato, tom-ahto. If I were hit by an asteroid I’d still call it bad luck, even if I meant I was on the wrong end of an extremely improbable event.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
There is a lot of the luck aspect to getting rich - but not to becoming middle class…
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
There is no such thing as luck. There are only probabilities which determine circumstance. Many circumstances are beyond ones ability to directly influence but just as many, if not more, are not.
Tomato, tom-ahto. If I were hit by an asteroid I’d still call it bad luck, even if I meant I was on the wrong end of an extremely improbable event.[/quote]
In that event it doesn’t matter what it’s called…it still sucks.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
There is a lot of the luck aspect to getting rich - but not to becoming middle class…
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
There is no such thing as luck. There are only probabilities which determine circumstance. Many circumstances are beyond ones ability to directly influence but just as many, if not more, are not.
Tomato, tom-ahto. If I were hit by an asteroid I’d still call it bad luck, even if I meant I was on the wrong end of an extremely improbable event.[/quote]
You could win the lottery…oh,wait,…there’s more of a chance of being hit by an asteroid while spelunking.
Hehehe…
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Two identical twins with the same job and family life in two similar neighborhoods wish to become wealthy. They both work equally as hard. It is very likely one will become wealthy while the other will not, because he got an opportunity that the other did not.
[/quote]
You are going to have to prove that. You are once again leaving out the most important factor - desire.
Read “The Wealthy Barber”.
Making excuses for failure is a guarantee for misery.
More evidence that it’s education/skills differentials at the heart of rising income inequality:
[quote]rainjack wrote:
You are going to have to prove that. You are once again leaving out the most important factor - desire.
Read “The Wealthy Barber”.
Making excuses for failure is a guarantee for misery.[/quote]
After reading that, read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, and “The Enlightened Millionaire” by Robert G. Allen.
A major problem in income inequality in the Western World is that we are groomed by our education systems to become academics. It’s simply an unrealistic way of raising citizens.
Youth are programmed with a linear path for success:
High school → College → Graduation → Success!
This is unrealistic, because not everyone is meant to be an academic. The majority of people would be better off following this:
High school → Trade school → Success! → College (optional)
It doesn’t take a high school diploma to learn how to weld, drive a truck, or fit pipe. In many parts of the civilized world, most tradespeople earn more than most college graduates, and many trades only require an 8th grade “academic” education.
If I could go back, I would spend those first two years of college I wasted, not “knowing what I wanted to do”, in trade school instead learning welding or instrumentation, or power engineering technology. Some simple 4-6 month certification that leads to a well-paying trade.
THEN go to university, with a part-time job that pays well.
This go-into-debt-for-college thing we do in our culture is ridiculous.
ElbowStrike